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Soon, floating n-plants that survive tsunami, quakes

Washington, April 17 IANS | 1 year ago

In case of a tsunami or earthquake, the imminent danger to a nuclear plant is cooling failure inside the reactor. What if a floating platform can take such nuclear plant deep at seafloor, to be automatically cooled by the surrounding seawater in a worst-case scenario?

Learning lessons from Japan's 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant disaster, a new design for nuclear plants built on floating platforms - modeled after those used for offshore oil drilling - could indefinitely prevent any melting of fuel rods, or escape of radioactive material, scientists said.

Such plants could be built in a shipyard, then towed to their destinations 10-12 km offshore where they would be moored to the seafloor and connected to land by an underwater electric transmission line.

Although the concept of a floating nuclear plant is not unique - Russia is in the process of building one now, on a barge moored at the shore - none have been located far enough offshore to be able to ride out a tsunami, Buongiorno added.

For this new design, he says, "the biggest selling point is the enhanced safety".

A floating platform several miles offshore, moored in about 100 metres of water, would be unaffected by the motions of a tsunami or earthquakes.

In addition, at the end of a plant's lifetime, "decommissioning" could be accomplished by simply towing it away to a central facility.

That would rapidly restore the site to pristine conditions, Buongiorno added.

He sees a market for such plants in Asia which has a combination of high tsunami risks and a rapidly growing need for new power sources.

Buongiorno and his team presented their concept at the 'Small Modular Reactors Symposium' hosted by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers this week.